Sea Breezes
by The Fairweather League
Summary: It is the salt on the sea breezes that keep me a working man, when the docks crack and sway as though falling trees and harsh iron waves bombard the ships in a worldly warfare that I had been to young to see, and the skies indubitably change to storms that release their pennies of water droplets. (UKUS/USUK: 1920's era)


It is the salt on the sea breezes that keep me a working man, when the docks crack and sway as though falling trees and harsh iron waves bombard the ship in a worldly warfare that I had been to young to see, and the skies indubitably change to storms that release their pennies of water droplets. It is the salt on the sea breezes that keeps me a working man, because I cannot do without nicotine, though the port is my source, and it is no craving, but a bare necessity. I _require_ the salt as it chokes at my dry throat, and certainly ocean water does nothing for the sorry state that I devolve to; the crystal fibres of it are a stopper alone.

I was not the one to have discovered this supposed revelation on my own time, for it was my newest companion who had turned my attention to the matter. He had been wrapped in the folds of ecstasy, an untameable little kike, as he does not seem to entirely recognise his impossible jubilancy. Said to me after the work was done when I drew smoke clouds in breaths of damaged lungs that gaspers and water didn't mix, and that, 'hell, the ocean's the biggest damn pool y'all have ever seen, so it's only kind of funny using them at a docking,' and he chortled away to prepare for the docking boats that would come around soon.

Cigars and water did not come to contact; the black bowls of the sea were too far below. It was only the American's foolishly endearing character that spouted filling comments in the grey emptiness of the shore side.

I did not stop for the boy. I did not question the nature of him, for that was no suggestion, nor a judgement, only a remark without meaning. I took the sensible course of action, and thought nothing of the encounter, as such things are common where he concerns himself. But soon the sticks were addictingly foul, and my brilliant eyes would burn with the contact of fumes. With my tremendous efforts, I found that my coat pockets jangled joyfully with unspent coins, and I satisfied my personal withdrawal in the newly discovered sense of the tides, which I had been woefully ignorant of in my clogged nostrils and clammy hands. I still revelled vapours when Stevedores passed by with the length of a cigarette held coolly between their fingers.

He didn't seem to notice, nothing was said, but I found that his smile was wider and a tad daffier than was usual for him.

My gaze has sharpened a great amount since taking on this fragile dock, a challenge when I was in need of consistency and a lifeline. However, a daily appearance is all that can be made on my part as I request work. Generally, I am welcome and loading is then available, (I am large and strong enough; I follow orders well) but there are other days that the weather does not agree, and as such I must roam the London streets for pay, or retire to my slum cabin and count farthings and desperate collection of shillings.

But as I say, I am often found with the trying weight of heaving boxes and tying stopper knots, and it was inevitable as the seasons changed and went, that certain details would, on my part, be noticed. The rope was never frayed, or it must otherwise be out of commission. Many boats tended to chip paint where the waves have mercilessly pounded upon the vulnerable material. Sailors always seem to be proud owners of tangled and unshed beards, which caught glimmering saltwater flecks and grime.

The boy is no sailor, this I am certain of, but he nevertheless has no wiry-haired chin. Alfred's jaw is peach and strong, the sort one would expect to see upon of-age boys, quite a contrast from the worn, sombre cogs that load the boats. Quite a contrast from myself, actually, though I am still admittedly young in my twenty-two years of age.

When summer reigns over bleak London in agonising heat and sunshine, and we have each returned to stepping on the stones, Alfred will be at my side in wait, telling tall tales of America and rolling wheels of barn hay, (summer here can't compare to Texas; it's like the centre of the sun, if the sun was on Earth) the true sun shimmering its worthy rays upon the short, untidy blonde straws of his inflated, naïve head, and I will repeat the mantra to myself, that I have gotten this far, and it is, in fact, normal to notice such things.

The sea shines its body in a great many and varied colours, after all. Sometimes it is unforgivingly cold and leaden, resulting in hunger. On the better days, I am able to see the dark silhouettes of fish, both big and small, as they swim these waters of dusk pink or gold, Caribbean greens and deep, deeply set indigos.

He will be there, he always is, as sweat trickles in sturdy streams down our pointing noses and flushed faces, and by the corner of my sights I will wonder how a set of eyes can possibly be so blue, big and beautiful, like the humming caresses of the water. I pride myself, because I have dived beyond the rushing froth at the shell and travelled coral mazes and I have witnessed the beauty that the ocean has only granted to me. The cigar smoke is of no consequence, now.

Seagulls tend to flock at the edges of the port, white birds against a backdrop of endlessly stretching teal, before they dawdle and wait for sacrificed meals of fish, and fly off to the beyond, never to be seen again, until they cross a better home.

I don't dare to come to his home with him, or invite him to my worn cot; all that can be done is street walking and bar attending. We cannot afford jazzy nightclubs, where the men shamelessly gawk as women strut their hips and fling long red dresses, and the alleyways provide little security.

So we came to the natural spot, at the seashore when the mud children had all gone back to their cottages, and sat down in the shade, watching as tinged air darkened and painted night stars on an oil canvas. The sounds of Great Britain were dull in our ears; mine that roared with the blood of expectation. Alfred was still young and, I will not deny, adorably hesitant. It was I who held him first, spectacles of his thrown and forgotten in the soft sand where I could see those eyes. There was still the reminder of taboo and punishment that was all too clear, and so the kiss was a painfully short one, but it was all that was needed. The feel of lips and tender caresses, pink and virginal, the gentle uncertainty of a spiteful god, before I proclaimed to my love that I could hold steady sword handles, and that I would be a crucified being who suffered the agony of a burning cross in many different lives, if it only meant that I could keep you, and that you could keep me.

Neither of us wanted to leave, of this I am sure, but morning had come: it wouldn't do to suffer the day on empty stomachs. Wary, we were sure to keep the distance under what we felt to be the suspicious eyes of the crew.

There were certainly no shows to attend, not for poor men, but I still spent the money on cheap paper and paints to draw messily for him, a vow to one day pluck the plump moon from its space in the heavens, so that my love would always be able see beautiful things, when I knew that the world was cruel and dirtied in wrongness, and in those isolated moments together, we seemed all that was _right_.

Daytime had become a monotonous ceremony with sunbeams and the bulge of muscles that worked difficult cargo, and I was silent, as I knew that I was in no need of sea breezes as well as tobacco, and the night became our saving grace, the twinkling stars above our one safety, who guaranteed our souls they would divulge no secrets as we passed on for many months.

For the dark was a cloak, albeit an imperfect one with punctured holes that took the form of beacons of candlelight by open windows, but we grew adept, staying in the shadows with the slight galloping of brown horses and drunks who would recall nothing in the cobble roads. We could not be afforded to be bothered with.

Another year was past. The gulls did not return.

It had been a windy time, an iron sea time beside the shore that I learned proved to be a peacekeeper rather than a threat, and Alfred and I were alone together, and our hands were rested at the other's hips, an occasional tightening grip in our want and our candid proclamations of faith, and I was nipping at his neck, searching blindly for a pulse, a signal of this, all that ever I would need.

His hands were gripping at the base of my neck, fingers engaging in little pulls at my hair. Alfred's scent was an overwhelming one, the sort that one knew instinctively in mutualism that must be protected and must simultaneously be allowed to protect. His breath was hot on the sensitive skin of my ear, as he said to me ' _I love you_ , _Arthur_ ,' while the painful crush of _'love'_ tore through my body, in my chest, hard and unbearable, and I could not be ashamed of my crying.

There were hands at my jaw line, close to wiping the alleviating wetness at my cheeks, not sweat, not at the nose, but Alfred seemed to understand, and he only rocked me.

I couldn't have prevented myself from such intimacy, even if such a thing was my wish. I could only choke out in hiccupping sobs the words, and it was like a bonding declaration, my promise just as well as his: _'I love you.'_

Just once more I needed that knowledge, to know in the warm cusp of his chin as I folded myself into him, a relieving press of our lips in bilateral harmony, and in that moment as galaxies imploded and a million suns were reborn in fiery blazes, we became infinite.

Just once more I needed that knowledge, to know in the warm cusp of his chin as I folded myself into him, a relieving press of our lips in bilateral harmony, and in that moment as galaxies imploded and a million suns were reborn in fiery blazes, we became infinite.


End file.
